Fire And Glass
by BizarreSerenity
Summary: Bane's last thoughts before his demise. Can be read as a companion to Caged Bird Sings. Balia, BanexTalia. Rated M.


She had always been beautiful.

He remembered the day she had been brought into their hellish world, pink and screaming, while her mother wept with both joy and sorrow. It would be more than a hard life for Talia Al Ghul, raised in a dungeon filled with nothing but demons and scum and the teasing hope of a light that would never be reached. The years after her birth were a whirlwind of nights spent crouched before her mother's cell, quietly guarding them from harm. The two seemed to shine, bright and angelic in the darkness that shrouded them all.

They hid her sex, shaved her head, stripped her of everything even remotely female that they could, kept her confined in her cell with her mother. But Bane was ever observant, protective, played singing games with her through the bars and taught her every language that he knew.

She was perfect. Her scalp may have been riddled with dark stubble and her limbs skinny from malnourishment, but she was luminescent. Her eyes were like sapphires, so deep and blue that they could have been the ocean. He held her through the bars when she could not sleep, stroked the rough stubble atop her head and whispered to her in Arabic.

When they took her mother away, beat her and raped her, Bane took her into his arms for the first time without a set of bars between the two.

From that moment he never wanted her to leave them again.

Her mewling sobs shook her tiny form, face pressed into his shoulder as her mother's screams filled the Pit. Even afraid she was lovely, her face tinted rose from the screams she muffled against his shoulder as her mother died.

Talia did not scream when he killed to protect her. She did not shrink away from him when he crushed the skulls of the men who would have hurt her. Instead she clung to him, arms wrapped around his neck, tiny hands clinging to his hands or a muscular arm.

When she had made the climb, he had been so proud.

Sunlight streamed down to kiss her skin as she scrambled up the ledges, her raggedy tunic and scarf flapping in the wind. He had stopped to watch her rise, to make the final jump that guaranteed her freedom.

Even as the men swarmed him with their crudely made weapons, ripping him down, he watched her rise. He watched her do what no other man had been able to do, and she just a tiny, small girl with no rope tied around her waist to catch her from falling.

The pain was worth her freedom, worth it a thousand times over.

He lived quietly until The League found him, wrapped in rags and cold, starving, but waiting. He knew she would find him again. Bane had never had a single doubt concerning Talia. His soul ached for her, tugging, ripping for that vision of her bathed in the sunlight.

And then there she was, no longer that skinny, bald little girl.

There she had been, wrapped in silks with her mane of dark curls, eyes like living gemstones. He barely had time to open his arms before she had flung herself into them, still-tiny-hands clamped around his neck as she clung to him, silent, burning.

He remembered the look in her father's eyes; he will always remember the jealousy that lay there, the hate, the absolute cold calculation and measurement that swam in their depths.

At that moment he knew that their time would not be long.

So he treasured her.

She had grown into a dazzling beauty, but also into a ruthless killer. He had once prized her innocence, her glow, and yes, it was still there, but he could not stop the fires of his anger from rising. Ra's Al Ghul had ripped that from her, thrust the weight of his mantle upon her.

The first time she gave herself to him was after he had been sent on a long, tiring mission that should have taken months for him to complete successfully, even with his training and strength. Ra's Al Ghul had been sending him away often, to separate them, Bane suspected, but he finished his assignment quickly, and returned.

It only strengthened the bond between them, only quickened Talia's steps when she ran to meet him at the entrance of the temple, dragged the embraces and stifled tears out longer.

That night she had slipped into his room, wrapped in one of her silken dressing gowns, her hair a dark mantle of satin that fell in long, loose curls down her back. Her eyes flared in the dark, deep blue pits that held more than just an assassin's chill. There was fire in those eyes, flames that refused to be banked.

He had sensed her presence, leaned up in the dark at the sound of her breath. Slivers of moonlight streamed in from the single high window of his cell-like room, just a few strips of dim, wavering light that caught the fire of her eyes. He could see her as if the room had been ablaze; his eyes had always welcomed the dark, and it was as if she stood in the golden sunlight that had bathed her that day on the ledge.

His breath had rasped through his mask when she let the robe slip from her shoulders, deep blue fabric shining against the dark cast of her skin. There was nothing left to hide her soft, feminine curves, the lean muscle that had built up over years of savage training and killings. His eyes traced over her form, worshiping the goddess that stood before him in the dark, and he had ripped the garment free until she lay atop him, gloriously bare.

The sight of her had burned into his memory, hotter than her touch, than the very first press of her body against his. She had stripped him down to his very soul as he lay atop her, muffling her cries, fire and glass thrumming through her veins.

_Bane._

The way she had breathed his name was what he thought of as his death drew near, as the sound of ammunition was released. The way she had worshiped him, loved him, clung to him even after his exile was what he cherished as the light faded from the world, and from his eyes.

_Bane._

The light was no more, but the sound of her voice lingered in the air as he was freed.


End file.
